Prognosis
Prognosis for any particular individual affected by schizophrenia is particularly hard to judge as treatment and access to treatment is continually changing as new methods become available and medical recommendations change.
However, retrospective studies have shown that about a third of people make a full recovery, about a third show improvement but not a full recovery, and a third remain ill19.
There is an extremely high suicide rate associated with schizophrenia. A recent study showed that 30% of patients diagnosed with this condition had attempted suicide at least once during their lifetime20. Another study suggested that 10% of persons with schizophrenia die by suicide21.
Schizophrenia and drug use
Schizophrenia can sometimes be triggered by heavy use of hallucinogenic drugs, especially LSD; but it appears that one has to have a predisposition towards developing schizophrenia for this to occur. There is also some evidence suggesting that people suffering schizophrenia but responding to treatment can have an episode as a result of use of LSD. Methamphetamine and PCP also mimic the symptoms of schizophrenia, and can trigger ongoing symptoms of schizophrenia in those who are vulnerable. There is also some evidence that marijuana usage can be a contributing trigger to schizophrenia in vulnerable individuals.
It has been noted that the majority of people with schizophrenia (estimated between between 75% and 90%) smoke tobacco. However, people diagnosed with schizophrenia have a much lower than average chance of getting and dying from lung cancer. While the reason for this is unknown, it may be because of a genetic resistance to the cancer, a side-effect of drugs being taken, or a statistical effect of increased likelihood of dying from causes other than lung cancer22. It is argued that the increased level of smoking in schizophrenia may be due to a desire to self-medicate with nicotine. A recent study of over 50,000 Swedish conscripts found that there was a small but significant protective effect of smoking cigarettes on the risk of developing schizophrenia later in life.28 Whilst the authors of the study stressed that the risks of smoking far outweigh these minor benefits, this study provides further evidence for the 'self-medication' theory of smoking in schizophrenia and may gives clues as to how schizophrenia might develop at the molecular level.
Alternative approaches to schizophrenia
An approach broadly known as the anti-psychiatry movement, notably most active in the 1960s has opposed the orthodox medical view of schizophrenia as an illness.
Psychiatrist Thomas Szasz has argued that psychiatric patients are not ill but are just individuals with unconventional thoughts and behaviour that make society uncomfortable. He argues that society seeks to unjustly control such individuals by classifying their behaviour as an illness and forcibly treating them as a method of social control. An important but subtle point is that Szasz has never denied the existence of the phenomena that mainstream psychiatry classifies as an illness (such as delusions, hallucinations or mood changes) but simply does not believe that they are a form of illness.
Similarly, psychiatrist R. D. Laing has argued that the symptoms of what we call mental illness are just reasonable (although perhaps not always obviously comprehensible) reactions to impossible demands that society and particularly family life puts on some individuals. Laing was revolutionary in valuing the content of psychotic experience as worthy of interpretation, rather than considering it simply as a secondary but essentially meaningless marker of underlying psychological or neurological distress.
It is worth noting that neither Szasz nor Laing ever considered themselves to be 'anti-psychiatry' in the sense of being against psychiatric treatment, but simply believed that it should be conducted between consenting adults, rather than imposed upon anyone against their will.
The 1976 book The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, by psychologist Julian Jaynes proposed that until the beginnings of historic times schizophrenia or a closely similar condition was the normal human consciousness; a "bicameral mind" in which a normal state of low affect suitable for routine activities would be interrupted in moments of crisis by "mysterious voices" giving instructions, which early people characterized as interventions from the gods. This theory was briefly controversial but continued work has not provided additional support.
Psychiatrist Tim Crow has argued that schizophrenia may be the evolutionary price we pay for a left brain hemisphere specialisation for language25. Since psychosis is associated with greater levels of right brain hemisphere activation and a reduction in the usual left brain hemisphere dominance, our language abilities may have evolved at the cost of causing schizophrenia when this system breaks down.
Researchers into shamanism have speculated that in some cultures schizophrenia or related conditions may predispose an individual to becoming a shaman24. Certainly the experience of having access to multiple realities is not uncommon in schizophrenia, and is a core experience in many shamanic traditions. Equally, the shaman may have the skill to bring on and direct the alternative state of consciousness psychiatrists label as illness. (See anti-psychiatry.)
Alternative medicine tends to hold the view that schizophrenia is primarily caused by imbalances in the body's reserves and absorption of dietary minerals, and/or the presence of heavy metals. The body's reactions to gluten are also implicated in some alternative theories (see gluten-free, casein-free diet).
See also
Famous people affected by schizophrenia
Recommended reading
- Bentall, R (2003) Madness explained: Psychosis and Human Nature. London: Penguin Books Ltd. ISBN 0713992492
- Green, M.F. (2001) Schizophrenia Revealed: From Neurons to Social Interactions. New York: W.W. Norton. ISBN 0393703347
- Torey, E.F (2001) Surviving Schizophrenia: A Manual for Families, Consumers, and Providers (4th Edition). Quill (HarperCollins Publishers) ISBN 0060959193
External links
References
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